They came up, and Mrs. Gaunt seemed a changed woman. She looked young and beautiful, and bent a look of angelic affection on her daughter; and said to Griffith, "Is she not grown? Is she not lovely? Sure you will never desert her again."
"'T was not her I deserted, but her mother; and she had played me false with her d——d priest," was Griffith's reply.
Mrs. Gaunt drew back with horror. "This, before my girl?" she cried. "Griffith Gaunt, you lie!"
And this time it was the woman who menaced the man. She rose to six feet high, and advanced on him with her great gray eyes flashing flames at him. "O that I were a man!" she cried: "this insult should be the last. I'd lay you dead at her feet and mine."
Griffith actually drew back a step; for the wrath of such a woman was terrible,—more terrible perhaps to a brave man than to a coward.
Then he put his hands in his pockets with a dogged air, and said, grinding his teeth, "But—as you are not a man, and I'm not a woman, we can't settle it that way. So I give you the last word, and good day. I'm sore in want of money; but I find I can't pay the price it is like to cost me. Farewell."
"Begone!" said Mrs. Gaunt: "and, this time, forever. Ruffian, and fool, I loathe the sight of you."
Rose ran weeping to her. "O mamma, don't quarrel with papa": then back to Griffith, "O papa, don't quarrel with mamma,—for my sake."
Griffith hung his head, and said, in a broken voice: "No, my lamb, we twain must not quarrel before thee. We will part in silence, as becomes those that once were dear, and have thee to show for 't. Madam, I wish you all health and happiness. Adieu."
He turned on his heel; and Mrs. Gaunt took Rose to her knees, and bent and wept over her. Niobe over her last was not more graceful, nor more sad.